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Toxic chemicals that poisoned your great-grandparents may also damage your health

New U.S. research is suggesting that chemicals can change the way genes work and that toxic chemicals that poisoned your great-grandparents may also damage your health.

5 Jun 2005

Research moves us closer to understanding how complicated network connections are wired up during embryonic development

A newborn baby moves, breathes and cries in part because a network of nerves called motor neurons carry signals from the infant's brain and spinal cord to muscles throughout its body.

3 Jun 2005

Role of toxins in inherited disease

A disease you are suffering today could be a result of your great-grandmother being exposed to an environmental toxin during pregnancy.

3 Jun 2005

Harmful chemicals may reprogram gene response to estrogen

New research shows that exposure to harmful chemicals and drugs during critical developmental periods early in life may actually "reprogram" the way certain genes respond to the female hormone estrogen. This genetic reprogramming may determine whether people with a genetic predisposition for a disease actually develop the disease.

1 Jun 2005

New clue to understanding how fatty acids work in the brain

Scientists in Cambridge have discovered that a brain protein called syntaxin enables fatty molecules, used widely in health supplements, to work in the brain to make it function properly. Lead Scientist, Dr Bazbek Davletov and his colleague Dr Colin Rickman from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK report their findings in the journal Chemistry and Biology.

1 Jun 2005

Environment factors can interact with genetics to increase disease risk

31 May 2005

Pregnant women's exposure to phthalates has adverse effects on genital development in their male children

For the first time, researchers have identified an association between pregnant women’s exposure to a nearly ubiquitous class of chemicals known as phthalates and adverse effects on genital development in their male children.

30 May 2005

Chemicals in food packaging linked to breast cancer

Chemicals found in some food packaging materials have been shown in a new study to affect the development of breast tissue in mice, which suggests, say scientists, that women exposed to such chemicals, which mimic female hormones, may be at increased risk of breast cancer.

30 May 2005

Technology for analyzing gene expression must be standardized

Technology for analyzing gene expression must be standardized among laboratories and across platforms around the world to support this age of human genome exploration, an Oregon Health & Science University researcher says.

29 May 2005

Protein TRPA1 essential for hearing also vital for pain perception

The same protein that "translates" sound into nerve signals to the brain and enables individuals to hear is also required for pain perception, researchers from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine have found.

25 May 2005

Researchers discover genetic trigger that plays a key role in cancer of the oesophagus

Cancer Research UK scientists at the University of Oxford have identified a gene which plays a key role in the development of cancer of the oesophagus by triggering changes in the oesophagus lining.

24 May 2005

Activation of thermoreceptors mediates raw garlic's burning pungency

The worldwide popularity of garlic as a food ingredient and its therapeutic stature in folklore both stem in part from the distinctive pungency associated with its raw, uncooked state.

23 May 2005

Bone loss reduced by blocking body's cannabis-like substances

British scientists have discovered that blocking the action of cannabis-like substances produced naturally by the body can reduce bone loss and they hope this finding will lead to new drugs to treat osteoporosis and other bone diseases.

23 May 2005

More health benefits from green tea

Green tea appears to protect against cancer by affecting a "promiscuous" protein that pharmaceutical experts are already targeting in an effort to develop a new drug to stop the disease, scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have found.

16 May 2005

Disabling gene defuses rheumatoid arthritis in mice

Scientists studying mice have identified a gene that allows immune cells known as neutrophils to protect themselves from the inflammatory chemicals they secrete.

16 May 2005

Researchers to explore genome of disease-fighting fungus

A team of Texas Agricultural Experiment Station scientists will soon begin genome sequencing a disease-fighting fungus used to protect crops, which has implications for both agriculture and the pharmaceutical industry.

15 May 2005

Discovery of a fundamental new route into cells may lead to new methods of drug delivery

Researchers from The University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), and the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis used electron microscopy to uncover new structures, 100,000th of a mm in size, which are involved in the very first step of particle and nutrient uptake into cells.

10 May 2005